Talk given at the Conference on Computers,
Freedom and Privacy, March 10, 1993, San Francisco.

There has been alot of discussion recently of negative, and potentially
negative, impacts of advanced computer technologies on a variety of human
concerns. However there has not been much discussion of how current technologies
may have affected the arts in a negative way. In this paper I intend to
discuss some aspects of this problem. In addition I hope to show how my
own computer basic music has been shaped as an attempt to counteract some
of these negative trends.

*The role of artists in the technological world.

For reasons I will discuss later, it seems artists have been almost
entirely uncritical in their acceptance of new technology as a positive
boon to their art. Or, perhaps more accurately, those who have decided
to use new technologies have been uncritical; those traditionalists who
have not gotten involved with new technologies and new media have seldom
made technology itself a subject for their art. This seems like a natural
split: those that are interested in technology embrace it, those that aren't
ignore it. But it is strange that while social, political and cultural
criticism has been the hallmark of the avant-garde throughout the century,
somehow computer technology has escaped this kind of criticism. Of couse,
early in the century, technology was seen as an ally in the destruction
of the "old order" by avant-garde artists, and more than a little of this
utopian thinking about technology remains. People eager for change in the
current situation can still fantasize that a new technology will offer
the social, personal or spiritual transformation they seek. Whatever is
new, after all, always offers some possibility of hope.

But in fact, I would argue, artists who embrace complex technologies
have largely abandoned their critical function and have been co-opted,
becoming unwitting (or witting) servants of other social and commercial
projects that have little to do with art. As a result in music, there has
been a shift in emphasis away from the development of a personal spiritual
power, and away from the inherently social aspect of music making.

*Artists become consumers.

The modern electronic musician is in a relatively "high-capitalization"
business. Whereas traditionally a musician would buy an expensive instrument
once early in his career, the electronic musician is typically constantly
buying and selling equipment, and wishing for more. The traditional musician
is a poor consumer: a reed player may buy some reeds occasionally, but
his life is focused on a practice which has nothing to do with buying and
selling; he is engaged in an essentially spiritual discipline of perfecting
his art. But the electronic musician is always adjusting to new equipment,
and needing more toİkeep up with current developments. This is an
essential re-definition of what it means to be a musician.

There is a similar state of affairs among visual artists and graphic
designers. The graphic designer at one time was someone with an art and
a pencil: now color desktop design systems are de rigeur, costing
many thousands of dollars with nearly no upper limit to what can be spent.

There are severe distorting effects on the work of an artist who succumbs
to an equipment addiction of this kind. There is less slack: with the high
overhead, work must pay for itself. As a consequence, there are fewer opportunities
to do work in experimental, potentially unpopular styles. Some small design
firms, for example, eventually transform themselves into service bureaus
to pay for the equipment thatİthey originally bought for their own use.

*Artists become marketers of equipment.

Of course, in this paradigm, the successful artist becomes the one with
the most gear. As such, the successful musician is serving to market music
equipment, sometimes explicitly throught endorsements of particular
products, sometimes only by example as a conspicuous consumer.
Magazines like "Electronic Musician", "Keyboard" etc, serve in music the
same role as computer magazines serve to a general computer users community:
they contain ads and product reviews. But, being concentrated on
the arts they are providing another "service": a model of what art-making
is about, and what the concerns of the artist are and should be. It's not
a pretty picture: its a world where technical concerns are paramount.

*Artists become researchers for industry.

The more technically oriented artists of course, can sometimes move beyond
marketing and become involved in research and development for technology
firms. This is explicitly the case at some of the larger institutes,
such as IRCAM in Paris and CNMAT (Center for New Music and Audio Technologies)
and Stanford, where technologies are licensed and contract research is
done. But the same dynamic can work implicitly in a community where artists
often are employed as technologists for their "day jobs", and a common
world view is shared between the communities.

At a recent conference of the International Computer Music Association,
I heard a paper presented by David Zicarelli, an accomplished musician
and musical technologist, which likened the computer to a parasite on the
body of musical practice. The paper was very interesting, and mind-opening,
but upon reflection what was even more amazing was that in 10 years of
ICMC conferences there had never been anything like this paper presented.
Industry shapes the discourse in ways that may not be obvious, and there
is little interest in spiritual or social analysis in this field.

It may seem I'm mixing the influence of technology on music with the
influence of commercialism on music. But the mixture is intentional, the
two are inseparable.

**My art and the issues shaping it.**

Obviously, underlying all that I am saying here there is an idea
about what art should be. I'm heavily involved in using technology in my
art, so I'm obviously not opposed to the entire idea of technological art.
But I'm interested in it in the sense of finding a way to resist
or counteract some of the influences of techno-capitalist civilization,
not by rejecting the whole technological world, but by finding a new individual
and community relation with it.
My work has broken into two strands, really organized around the two
strands I have alluded to above, the problem of community, and the problem
of personal spiritual development.

*Music is social.

Much of the emphasis on current computer technology has been on building
powerful "one-man-band" systems, which allow one composer/musician, working
alone, to create and realize works on synthetic orchestras of any description.
These programs propose a vision of music as a process of creating perfect
"sound-objects", polished and perfected. No troublesome musicians are needed,
no strings to break, reeds to squawk, or drummers to show up late and drunk.
But music is in its essence a social process, and I have wanted to find
a way to use the new musical resources offered by computer technology to
express and reinforce this fact.

As a consequence, in 1986 fellow composer John Bischoff and I began
a group called "The Hub", a computer network band. The idea was to find
a way for composers working in the computer-controlled electronic music
medium to play together. Each composer has a computer controlled synthesizer
system which is connected to the others on a local area network system
of our own design. Composers designing pieces for this band generally only
specify the data which is to be shared between players on the net. The
result is a sort of enhanced musical improvisation, wherein the computers
and players are all continually making musical decisions based upon what
the others are doing.

The nature of the collaboration between Hub composers is unusual. There
are many meetings where data exchange formats are ironed out. Composers
then go home, write some code, come together and try it out, and make adjustments.
Often group discussions take place over e-mail. At performance time, the
computers are making most of the note-to-note decisions, and the composer/performers
are left to make global adjustments. The result is a really new kind of
collective composition, a new social way of making music that didn't exist
before. We have a good time.

*Instruments are personal.

Another strain of my work has been in the development of new computer software
instruments for use in the context of playing improvised music. Generally,
current commercial musical instruments are based on MIDI, an industry standard
for musical data transfer. But built into the midi specification are assumptions
about what constitutes interesting musical parameters, and a piano-keyboard
oriented paradigm. Using a combination of homebuilt and commercial hardware
and homebuilt software, I have created a series of virtual instruments
that I use in performance with another ensemble. In this ensemble, called
ROTODOTI, I am the only electronic player: the other instruments are percussion
instruments, cello and trombone. I have found that two of my software
instruments, which I call "the mouse guitar" and "touch typing", are actually
rich enough to be used without modifications for many years. Rather than
concentrating on a technological process of constant instrumental refinement,
I have instead opted for relatively stable instruments, more along the
lines of a traditional musical instrument, on which I need to practice
and develop my personal ability. There is in fact no substitute for
practice, and I've found it important to build instruments rich and stable
enough that I have the time to master them.

**Summary**

I think that in a techno-capitalist world, where all community and spiritual
needs are supposed to be taken care of as a "side-effect" of market forces,
it isn't surprising that art would eventually share the same off-center
emphasis, marginalizing spirituality and community in the pursuit of technical
wizardry. But rather than becoming a cheerleader for industrial
technology, the artist has a duty to try to define another way of seeing
the world. I'm trying to hold to what may be an old-fashioned view of art:
that the artist's job is to be directly involved in developing the spiritual
power of individuals, and the power of our communities to deal with what
we must: in this case, rapid technological change.